Archive | How To Articles

Does it matter whether you call your personal media machine a PVR, DVR or HTPC? No, not at all, but knowing the slight, sometimes very subjective difference may help you in finding the right information and help.

Lifehacker’s guide is a great overview of how you can use DLNA and UPnP. It’s as simple as installing the right app on your smartphone and you’ve got full control over your media and playback on all your devices.Continue Reading

Although it’d be silly in my setup (my Nintendo Wii sits vertically next to my HTPC(s)), if you were one of the lucky folks to snag a Nintendo Wii here’s an article about using Orb and the Wii Opera Browser to stream audio/video to make your Wii behave like a media center. No word yet if there’s a way to gesture angrily with the wiimote to fast forward through commercials 😛

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A while back I built my own DVR (digital video recorder) and it has occurred to me that others may be interested in doing the same. The whole project was actually quite easy, although I am comfortable building a PC from components, and others may not be as comfortable. As I walk through this please keep in mind that while I was trying to keep costs down the object was to build (as easily as possible) a DVR that was simple to use, took up a minimal amount of space, and would be easy to modify if necessary.

I started with a spare PC I had sitting around unused. I realize most people don’t have a spare computer just sitting around their house. The point I’m trying to make is that the computer you use doesn’t have to be a top of the line system, especially if you are careful about choosing the components you’ll be adding.“

“The MediaMVP from Hauppauge is this great little device that lets you get photos, music and videos off of your PC and onto your television. And it’s cheap – only $100. Without any extra work, you can use it to playback recordings made with Beyond TV. All you have to do is just point to the recorded shows directory. The MediaMVP will play your MPEG2 or Divx files. But it’s a less than ideal experience for lots of reasons:

* You can only see titles of the video files and you can’t view information like show description, original airdate, etc.
* You can’t watch live TV
* You can’t delete a show that you’ve already watched
* You can’t schedule new recordings or see which recordings are scheduled

So with these limitations in mind, a team of us decided that we could create a better interface. We created the open source MediaMVP BTV interface project. With our software, you get something closer to the complete Beyond TV experience (plus some extras like weather and Music playlists!), including access to live TV, and the program guide!”